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Enuma Elish: the Origins of Its Creation Studia Antiqua Volume 5 Number 1 Article 9 June 2007 Enuma Elish: The Origins of Its Creation Svetlana Tamtik Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studiaantiqua Part of the Classics Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Tamtik, Svetlana. "Enuma Elish: The Origins of Its Creation." Studia Antiqua 5, no. 1 (2007). https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studiaantiqua/vol5/iss1/9 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studia Antiqua by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Enuma Elish: The Origins of Its Creation Svetlana Tamtik he Enuma Elish is a Babylonian creation epic, originally written Ton seven clay tablets which were found in the ruins of Ashurban- ipal’s library in Nineveh.1 This epic describes the creation of the world by the god Marduk, performed through splitting the body of the sea monster Tiamat at the climax of a battle between the two. Yet, the main purpose of this epic was to explain the elevation of the chief Babylonian god Marduk to the top of the Mesopotamian pantheon and the legitimization of his superiority over the other gods. The Enuma Elish is the most famous Mesopotamian creation story and is considered to be a masterpiece of their literature. However, it is not quite unique in its composition. It has many parallels with other ancient Near Eastern stories and originates from earlier tradi- tions, myths, and beliefs. In this paper I will analyze those influences and will try to shed some light on the origins of its composition. Like most cosmogonies of the ancient Near East, the Enuma Elish has some features common to all of them. They include several Svetlana Tamtik is a junior in the Ancient Near Eastern Studies program. She hopes to pursue graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley. 1. Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 1. 66 Tamtik: Enuma Elish elements: (1) the creation, or rather organization, of the world from the elements existing in the form of unbridled chaos, as represented by the primordial ocean or sea2, (2) the presence of the divine creator, (3) the presence of the antagonist or a primordial monster, (4) a battle between “good” and “evil” forces, (5) the separation of the elements (earth and sky, land and sea, order and chaos, etc.), and (6) the creation of mankind. These features of a creation story existed in many ancient cultures. We find them in ancient Greek cosmogony, where Eurynome, the Goddess of All Things, appears from the primordial chaos and divides sea from sky.3 The elements of the creation from chaos are also present in Egyptian, Phoenician and Vedic literature.4 They also existed in Canaanite mythology, where the stage before the creation was represented by unrestrained rule of the sea, personified as the god Yamm, who was later subdued and organized by Baal—the creator.5 But the most popular comparison is between the Enuma Elish and the creation story described in the Old Testament. Both accounts include the majority of the elements listed above, except there is no reference to a primordial monster in Genesis. However, the name for “the deep” (referring to the waters covering the earth) in the Hebrew Bible is tehom, which corresponds with Tiamat—the Mesopotamian personification of the sea in Enuma Elish.6 Similar elements were typical for the creation stories of the other ancient Near Eastern cultures. Unfortunately only few of them are mentioned here, because not all of those texts are available. Yet, most surprisingly, most of those elements are not found as prevalent in earlier Mesopotamian cosmogonies. Those accounts lack a well- developed theme of the primordial chaos represented by the sea. They reflect no tradition of a single divine creator; gods usually make the 2. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, 88–89; also David Neiman, “The Super- caelian Sea,”JNES 28.4 (1969): 246–48. 3. Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 26. 4. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, 97. 5. Neiman, “The Supercaelian Sea,” 247. 6. George L. Klein, “Reading Genesis 1,” SWJT 44.1 (2001): 27; also Thorkild Jacobsen, “The Battle Between Marduk and Tiamat,” JAOS 88.1 (1968): 105. Studia Antiqua 5.1, Spring 2007 67 world together.7 In some cases this role is assumed by different local gods, depending on the city in which the legend was used. There is no primordial battle between “good” and “evil” forces, and even though the theme of fighting dragons is very popular, it usually happens after the world was already created.8 Finally, there is no clear tradition of dividing the elements and separating the sky from the earth. All those elements seem to come to Mesopotamian cosmogonies at later times. On the other hand, the earlier creation stories of that region have features different from those described above and unique for Sumerian culture. Moreover, there is no typical Sumerian creation story. As S. G. F. Brandon notes, “When we survey the exceeding variety of legends dealing with the origin of things that have been recovered . it would seem that there was no common pattern in the Sumerian thought on this subject.”9 Nevertheless, there are many elements of earlier Sumerian myths that were also incorporated in Enuma Elish. Most of them did not come from cosmogonies, but rather from stories describing a combat between a local god and a dragon or some other monster. L. W. King has noticed that the Dragon-Myth existed in more than one form in Babylonian mythology, and it is not improbable that many of the great cities of Babylonia possessed local versions of the legend in each of which the city-god figured as the hero.10 It is clear that fighting a dragon was one of the most important achieve- ments for any Mesopotamian god, especially for Marduk—the chief god of all Babylonia. In this case the authors of Enuma Elish had to 7. L. W. King, ed., Enuma Elish: The Seven Tablets of Creation (2 vols.; vol. 12 of Luzac’s Semitic Text and Translation Series (London: Luzac and Co., 1902; repr., New York: AMS Press, 1976), 2:125–27. 8. Robert William Rogers, ed., Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament 2nd ed. (New York/Cincinnati: The Abingdon Press, 1926), 61; also King, Enuma Elish, 2:68. 9. S. G. F. Brandon, Creation Legends of the Ancient Near East (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1963), 68. 10. King, Enuma Elish, 2:69 68 Tamtik: Enuma Elish make him look superior to other gods and his victory to be the most triumphant. Yet, in order to make him a legitimate god, the story of his exaltation had to be built on earlier Sumerian traditions. This explains why there are so many borrowed elements from different Sumerian dragon stories present in Enuma Elish. One `of the most interesting evidences of borrowing might be found in the Myth of Anzu. In this myth, the dragon Anzu steals the Tablet of Destinies from the chief god Enlil, intending “to usurp the Enlil-power,” to “control the orders for all the gods” and to “possess the throne and [to] be master of the rites.”11 After Anu (Enlil) becomes aware of the loss of the Tablet of Destinies, he looks for a god who could slay Anzu. Similar story unfolds in Enuma Elish, when the sea dragon Tiamat takes a possession of the Tablet of Destinies, and Anshar—the chief god—looks for a hero to fight herxii. In the myth of Anzu, as in Enuma Elish, Ea plays the role of a counselor, propos- ing, “Let me give orders and search among the gods, and pick from the assembly Anzu’s conqueror.”13 Finally, the congregation of gods asks the mother goddess Mami for her favorite son Ninurta, who agrees to fight the dragon. After the victory over Anzu, the gods acclaim Ninurta with many names.14 The same pattern is observed in Enuma Elish. After Marduk’s victory over Tiamat, the gods “pronounced his fifty names” and “made his position supreme.”15 Besides the preceding similarities, more evidence exists in Enuma Elish of the borrowings from the Myth of Anzu. In Enuma Elish, two gods—Ea and Anu (Enlil)—turn down the invitation to fight Tiamat before Marduk accepts it.16 Similarly, in the Myth of Anzu, three gods reject the request to lead the army, and only then does Ninurta agree 11. Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh and Others (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 207. 12. Benjamin R. Foster, trans., Enuma Elish, in The Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo (Leiden: Brill, 1997–2002), 2:394; 11.119–24. 13. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, 210. 14. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, 219–21. 15. Enuma Elish, 402; 7.144. 16. Enuma Elish, 394; 2.71–118. Studia Antiqua 5.1, Spring 2007 69 to do so.17 According to Richard J. Clifford, “in Sumerian traditions eleven monsters oppose Ninurta.” The same number fight on Tiamat’s side in the Enuma Elish, but only eight are given names, which indicates that the number eleven is a borrowing.18 In addition, the Tablet of Destinies does not fit in the story of the Enuma Elish as it does with the Myth of Anzu, “where its disappearance initiates the dramatic action.”19 Moreover, it is not mentioned anywhere in the Enuma Elish that Tiamat had stolen the Tablet of Destinies.
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